JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

If one thinks of the month of Ju­ly as a book, then the fall­out from the Gov­ern­ment’s abrupt can­cel­la­tion of con­tracts un­der the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) in June would be the main char­ac­ter.

The State of Emer­gency would be a sup­port­ing char­ac­ter, and the ar­rival of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di would make a guest ap­pear­ance. Oth­er no­table cast­ings in­clud­ed pris­on­ers claim­ing death plots against them, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young be­ing stripped of his pen­sion and po­lice pro­tec­tion and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge ad­vis­ing home­own­ers to shoot and kill first, even shoot­ing home in­vaders in the back.

The Gov­ern­ment’s late-June de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate the con­tracts of over 300 CEPEP con­trac­tors na­tion­wide cre­at­ed im­me­di­ate, wide­spread up­heaval. The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) swift­ly con­demned the ac­tion, al­leg­ing it had uni­lat­er­al­ly dis­placed more than 10,500 work­ers, cast­ing them in­to un­ex­pect­ed un­em­ploy­ment overnight.

Amidst the in­ten­si­fy­ing con­tro­ver­sy over the dis­missals, the Gov­ern­ment ex­e­cut­ed what some be­lieve to be a po­lit­i­cal­ly charged blow against for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young. The in­tro­duc­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, which was passed in both the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, fun­da­men­tal­ly re­struc­tured the cri­te­ria for re­ceiv­ing a state pen­sion.

The leg­is­la­tion es­tab­lished a min­i­mum one-year term in of­fice for a for­mer prime min­is­ter to qual­i­fy for the ben­e­fit. The Gov­ern­ment’s ap­pli­ca­tion of this law was retroac­tive, ef­fec­tive from March 10, 2025. This care­ful­ly cho­sen date com­plete­ly dis­qual­i­fied Young, who had led the coun­try for a mere six weeks, from March 17 to April 28.

On Ju­ly 1, just as the dis­missed CEPEP work­ers con­tin­ued their des­per­ate search for an­swers fol­low­ing the sud­den con­tract can­cel­la­tions that left them job­less, the Gov­ern­ment, through a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion, stripped Young of his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.

While the na­tion was still reel­ing from the mass dis­missals, work­ers en­gaged un­der the re­for­esta­tion pro­gramme, un­der the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment’s Re­for­esta­tion and Wa­ter­shed Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme, al­so re­ceived ter­mi­na­tion no­tices. This sec­ond wave of fir­ings ex­ac­er­bat­ed the mount­ing pub­lic anger and prompt­ed the Op­po­si­tion to claim the Gov­ern­ment was vin­dic­tive.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi ve­he­ment­ly con­demned the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ac­tions. They la­belled the fir­ing of over 100 con­trac­tors, which col­lec­tive­ly af­fect­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4,608 in­di­vid­u­als, as acts of “wicked­ness,” “vin­dic­tive­ness,” and “po­lit­i­cal pet­ti­ness.” The Op­po­si­tion al­leged that the Gov­ern­ment was em­ploy­ing eco­nom­ic hard­ship as a po­lit­i­cal weapon, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing in­di­vid­u­als and groups per­ceived as sym­pa­thet­ic to the PNM.

Co­in­cid­ing with these events, the Gov­ern­ment planned, pre­pared for, and of­fi­cial­ly host­ed In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di on a state vis­it. This diplo­mat­ic un­der­tak­ing mo­men­tar­i­ly di­vert­ed na­tion­al at­ten­tion from the es­ca­lat­ing do­mes­tic is­sues. The vis­it was not with­out con­tro­ver­sy, how­ev­er, as some mem­bers of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty voiced com­plaints over his ar­rival.

Dur­ing his stay, Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di promised 2,000 lap­tops for sec­ondary schools and signed sev­er­al bi­lat­er­al agree­ments with the host na­tion. These agree­ments sought to es­tab­lish and strength­en for­mal links in ar­eas such as tech­nol­o­gy, health, and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries. While the state vis­it and its ac­com­pa­ny­ing diplo­mat­ic buzz gen­er­at­ed pos­i­tive head­lines and tem­porar­i­ly pulled the na­tion­al news agen­da away from the mass fir­ings, this dis­trac­tion proved short-lived.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Guardian Me­dia un­cov­ered that a stag­ger­ing 63 per cent—ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4.1 bil­lion—of CEPEP’s fi­nances lacked full pub­lic ac­count­ing and trans­paren­cy. As a state en­ti­ty, CEPEP is legal­ly re­quired to sub­mit an­nu­al re­ports to Par­lia­ment. How­ev­er, the 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port pro­vid­ed a damn­ing in­dict­ment, re­veal­ing that the com­pa­ny con­duct­ed no in­ter­nal au­dits be­tween 2018 and 2023. Dur­ing this crit­i­cal five-year win­dow, CEPEP re­ceived a sub­stan­tial $2.5 bil­lion in pub­lic funds. The to­tal amount of pub­lic fund­ing poured in­to the CEPEP pro­gramme be­tween 2009 and 2023 ex­ceed­ed $6.5 bil­lion, un­der­scor­ing the need for the au­dit the Gov­ern­ment had or­dered in­to the com­pa­ny be­fore con­tracts were ter­mi­nat­ed.

Mov­ing away from the main plot, you will find the sub-plot of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence from her first Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Ja­maica. For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers stat­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter had re­mained at home to ad­dress press­ing do­mes­tic mat­ters.

Fol­low­ing this high-pro­file omis­sion from the re­gion­al gath­er­ing, Sobers quick­ly sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic and the re­gion­al body, af­firm­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence did not con­sti­tute a slight against Cari­com. He in­sist­ed that his pres­ence at the meet­ing served to reaf­firm Trinidad and To­ba­go’s stead­fast, con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to the re­gion­al bloc, at­tempt­ing to mit­i­gate any po­ten­tial diplo­mat­ic dam­age.

In the mean­time, the Prime Min­is­ter fo­cused on so­cial pol­i­cy, propos­ing new leg­is­la­tion to raise the le­gal age for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use to 25 years and over. Fur­ther­more, she pro­posed in­creas­ing the le­gal drink­ing age for al­co­hol con­sump­tion from 18 to 21 years. These pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives were an­nounced as she si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly achieved a sig­nif­i­cant po­lit­i­cal mile­stone: win­ning her fourth con­sec­u­tive in­ter­nal lead­er­ship elec­tion for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) since 2010, se­cur­ing her po­si­tion un­op­posed and cre­at­ing new po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry for the par­ty.

The na­tion­al fo­cus quick­ly re­turned to the reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled CEPEP fall­out. Af­ter an ini­tial fil­ing and sub­se­quent with­draw­al, the Op­po­si­tion for­mal­ly re­filed a law­suit against the Gov­ern­ment con­test­ing the CEPEP dis­missals. The law­suit in­clud­ed an as­so­ci­at­ed ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing in­junc­tions to stay the ter­mi­na­tions and legal­ly pre­vent CEPEP from hir­ing re­place­ment con­trac­tors un­til the le­gal process con­clud­ed. Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed presided over the hear­ing.

Part of the orig­i­nal dis­missal terms in­clud­ed a Gov­ern­ment promise to pay the fired work­ers a full month’s salary for Ju­ly. By the mid­dle of the month, how­ev­er, this pay­ment had not ma­te­ri­alised, prompt­ing the Op­po­si­tion to pub­licly call out the Gov­ern­ment for fail­ing to ful­fil its com­mit­ment.

As the two po­lit­i­cal sides en­gaged in a fierce tus­sle over the un­paid salaries, an un­ex­pect­ed rev­e­la­tion emerged that two Op­po­si­tion coun­cil­lors re­ceived mil­lions worth of CEPEP con­tracts to­talling near­ly $10 mil­lion.

The com­pa­nies hold­ing these lu­cra­tive con­tracts had ob­tained ex­ten­sions that stretched to 2029. Records al­so showed that these com­pa­nies had al­ready re­ceived mil­lions in pay­ments un­der the con­tracts up to the point of can­cel­la­tion.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, as the Gov­ern­ment sought to de­fend its ter­mi­na­tions, CEPEP’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Kei­th Ed­dy, sub­mit­ted a cru­cial af­fi­davit. Ed­dy as­sert­ed that the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion had re­newed con­tracts in the run-up to the April gen­er­al elec­tion with­out se­cur­ing the nec­es­sary and prop­er in­sti­tu­tion­al ap­provals. Ed­dy claimed that in March, for­mer CEPEP Chair­man Joel Ed­wards in­formed him that Cab­i­net had ap­proved the ex­ten­sion of the con­tracts, which were orig­i­nal­ly set to ex­pire in 2026, un­til 2029. Ed­dy fur­ther al­leged that for­mer line min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi had pres­sured him to for­mal­ly ex­e­cute these con­tract ex­ten­sions.

In be­tween the CEPEP fi­as­co, the coun­try grap­pled with the dis­cov­ery of the dis­mem­bered body of 22-year-old Can­dace Hon­ore on Ju­ly 17. Hon­ore, a res­i­dent of Va­len­cia, was last seen leav­ing her work­place at 3 pm on Ju­ly 8. Au­thor­i­ties dis­cov­ered her re­mains, hacked up and placed in­side a suit­case, which was then dumped in­to a pond in San­gre Grande. The next day, in an un­re­lat­ed but con­tex­tu­al­ly rel­e­vant event, the Gov­ern­ment de­clared an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE).

On Ju­ly 18, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro an­nounced that or­gan­ised crim­i­nals had formed a so­phis­ti­cat­ed crime syn­di­cate, ex­plic­it­ly tar­get­ing ju­di­cial of­fi­cers, prison of­fi­cials, and oth­ers with­in the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. This cred­i­ble threat forced the Gov­ern­ment to con­vert the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force’s head­quar­ters in Ch­aguara­mas in­to makeshift high-se­cu­ri­ty pris­ons for the tar­get­ed trans­fer of high-risk in­mates.

The SoE was de­clared with­out an ac­com­pa­ny­ing cur­few, a de­ci­sion in­tend­ed to avoid dis­rupt­ing nor­mal civil­ian ac­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, the fam­i­ly of the first per­son mur­dered dur­ing the SoE im­me­di­ate­ly ap­pealed for this pol­i­cy to change. Busi­ness­man Ryan Bharatt was killed mere hours af­ter the State of Emer­gency was de­clared. Crim­i­nals had at­tempt­ed to ex­tort Bharatt, who re­fused their de­mands, lead­ing to his de­fi­ant mur­der.

De­spite the emo­tion­al ap­peal from Bharatt’s rel­a­tives, the Gov­ern­ment main­tained its po­si­tion, and life con­tin­ued with­out a cur­few. Law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties pro­ceed­ed to round up men and women deemed a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, plac­ing them un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment. This trans­fer, how­ev­er, cre­at­ed its own dis­tinct set of chal­lenges with­in the se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem.

Among the star­tling dis­cov­er­ies made dur­ing the se­cu­ri­ty sweep was the rev­e­la­tion that one in­mate, while in the care of the prison ser­vice, had man­aged to pos­sess a 65-inch tele­vi­sion in his cell. Cru­cial­ly, the in­mate used the tele­vi­sion and its in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with the out­side world through on­line games, such as Roblox. Min­is­ter Sturge ex­posed this se­cu­ri­ty breach while ex­plain­ing to Par­lia­ment why the au­thor­i­ties had found it nec­es­sary to re­move cer­tain high-risk in­mates from the tra­di­tion­al prison care sys­tem and place them in­stead at the for­ti­fied Teteron Bar­racks.

Dur­ing the sub­se­quent Par­lia­ment de­bate on ex­tend­ing the State of Emer­gency for a fur­ther three months, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie dis­closed an alarm­ing in­ci­dent con­cern­ing the new de­ten­tion lo­ca­tion. He stat­ed that crim­i­nals had at­tempt­ed to tar­get the reg­i­ment head­quar­ters, con­firm­ing that the De­fence Force had in­ter­cept­ed two drones at­tempt­ing to in­fil­trate the bar­racks.

“I have re­ceived clear­ance to state that the lo­ca­tions where we re­cent­ly re­moved the prob­lem­at­ic in­mates were al­so in­fil­trat­ed by two drones. That is the ex­tent of what I am per­mit­ted to share. The De­fence Force, which main­tains cus­tody of those ar­eas, suc­cess­ful­ly dealt with that sit­u­a­tion,” Je­re­mie told Par­lia­ment.

Je­re­mie al­so adopt­ed a de­fen­sive pos­ture when the Op­po­si­tion re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion about the liv­ing con­di­tions at Teteron Bar­racks. He fa­mous­ly stat­ed that the head­quar­ters was “not the Hy­att.”

“They asked us to des­ig­nate premis­es in a par­tic­u­lar way. We have des­ig­nat­ed them as such. These in­di­vid­u­als are se­cure with­in those premis­es. The premis­es are not the Hy­att, but they are se­cure there.”

The high-se­cu­ri­ty trans­fer of in­mates ne­ces­si­tat­ed new pro­to­cols, in­clud­ing re­quir­ing at­tor­neys to wear blind­folds when vis­it­ing their clients to pre­vent them from iden­ti­fy­ing the lay­out and se­cu­ri­ty fea­tures of the fa­cil­i­ty. Al­though this mea­sure faced a le­gal chal­lenge, High Court Judge West­min James ul­ti­mate­ly found that the new rule was not un­rea­son­able, up­hold­ing the State’s pre­rog­a­tive for max­i­mum se­cu­ri­ty.

Rea­son­able or not, two high-pro­file in­mates, Ra­jaee Ali and Earl Richards, con­tend­ed that the move by the State con­sti­tut­ed a pre­lude to their mur­der. They claimed the State was de­lib­er­ate­ly cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment to fa­cil­i­tate their ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tion, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment was ac­tive­ly blam­ing them for the cir­cum­stances that led to the de­c­la­ra­tion of the State of Emer­gency.

At­tor­neys Keron Ramkhal­wan and An­war Ho­sein for­mal­ly lodged their clients’ grave con­cerns with the au­thor­i­ties. In a strong­ly word­ed let­ter ad­dressed to act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, the at­tor­neys wrote: “It is our con­sid­ered po­si­tion that the nar­ra­tive the au­thor­i­ties cur­rent­ly dis­sem­i­nate con­sti­tutes a de­lib­er­ate con­struct, de­signed to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tion of the in­tend­ed ap­pli­cant (Ali) at the di­rec­tion of the State. This nar­ra­tive al­so ap­pears in­tend­ed to pro­vide jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the ex­treme mea­sures the Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly adopt­ed, in­clud­ing the con­tem­plat­ed or de­clared State of Emer­gency.”

While these two mur­der-ac­cused men ex­pressed fears over a per­ceived state-spon­sored mur­der plot, some cit­i­zens re­act­ed with alarm to Sturge’s con­tro­ver­sial claim re­gard­ing the ‘stand your ground’ leg­is­la­tion. Sturge as­sert­ed that the law gave home­own­ers the right to shoot in­trud­ers in the back.

Sturge said: “You know they al­ways say if he run­ning away you can’t shoot? No. Cir­cum­stances—he’s run­ning away armed with a gun—you could shoot him in the back and ex­plain your­self af­ter, that’s the re­al­i­ty. If he’s run­ning away with­out a gun, that’s a dif­fer­ent thing.”

This ig­nit­ed a fierce pub­lic and le­gal de­bate over the bound­aries of self-de­fence and the ap­pro­pri­ate use of lethal force.

The month wrapped up with a firm de­nial by the Prime Min­is­ter that the can­cel­la­tion of con­tracts un­der CEPEP and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), pro­grammes that in­tel­li­gence agents had re­port­ed­ly iden­ti­fied to her as part of a ‘feed­ing trough’ for crim­i­nals, was the un­der­ly­ing trig­ger for the SoE.